She got intimate with singer Chris Isaak on the beach for his
Wicked Game
music video; the late Gianni Versace said she had the most beautiful body in the world; and she ruled the catwalks at the height of the supermodels era in the late Eighties. In a word, Helena Christensen was It.

"It's incredible to have been part of fashion history - my whole career has been one big highlight," says Christensen, who still looks every inch the supermodel at 42, her lean figure clad in snug coral jeans and a purple blouse when we meet, her reddish-brown hair framing those famous emerald eyes. "I realise how incredible it is to have worked with so many iconic, inspiring, talented people, to see inside the empires of legendary designers. At the time, I would complain because I'd have stood for hours before an haute-couture show, but now I appreciate what I was part of."

Part of, yet consciously apart from, too: she could have lived the champagne lifestyle of Naomi Campbell and her peers - subjects off limits in this interview - but surprisingly chose to distance herself, focusing instead on her true love, photography. "It was never really about being a model," insists the half-Peruvian, half-Danish model, who was discovered aged 18 when she won Miss Denmark. "It was about learning photography in the most unique way I possibly could. I felt like I was in the best photography school in the world - I had Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Richard Avedon and Irving Penn teach me." Her fashion work has featured in
Nylon
, where she was briefly creative director,
Marie Claire
and
Elle
, while her travel photography has appeared in exhibitions for Oxfam.

Motherhood also proved a key factor in her decision to retire from the catwalk; in 1999, she gave birth to her son, Mingus. "Having Mingus was mind-blowing. It's like torture being woken up all night, and then having to function all day, but I have so much love for him." She's no longer with Mingus's father, the American actor Norman Reedus, but refuses to be drawn on her love life, perhaps wary after the tabloid intrusion when she was dating Michael Hutchence, the late INXS frontman, back in the Nineties.

Despite her reticence, that's not to say Christensen hasn't taken modelling assignments in recent years. She's appeared in French
Vogue
,
Harper's Bazaar
,
Elle
and
i-D
, and worked for brands as diverse as Habitat, Reebok, Walkers, Carlsberg and Specsavers, the lucrative allure of such assignments being hard to ignore. Her latest job is with lingerie label Triumph, which is launching a new premium range, Essence, to celebrate its 125th anniversary. In the campaign, Christensen shows that her trademark smoulder hasn't faded, posing in silky bras, corsets and Fifties-style high-waist knickers. As she enthusiastically describes how she'd wear certain pieces, talking knowledgably about fabric and detail, she admits to doing the campaign because of her "obsession with lingerie and finding the right fit".

Being photographed in her smalls for the campaign - and throughout her career - she's all too aware of the pressures of having to look good. "It's really intimidating to go on the beach in a bikini. If someone is painting neon circles around parts of your body, like those pathetic tabloid magazines, it makes me so angry. I can't believe that humans have sunk to this level; it's so ingrained, people are brainwashed with it."

She laughs off the idea of being bikini-ready as something that magazines use to make women worry, even if she herself has helped promote this idea over the years by appearing in them. "Magazines say we need to do all these crazy things in order to look better on the beach. The truth is, work out a bit and get firmer. Get a bathing suit you feel comfortable in. Try to eat a little less of the stuff you know will make you look less firm and don't start two days before you go."

Easy for her to say with her famous curves as in demand as ever, I suggest. "It's not like [I] wake up in the morning going, 'Oh I'm so perfect, I don't need to do anything'. Every [model] I know in this business has the same issues as every other woman, maybe more so. You can easily be made to feel self-conscious in this job."

She took up boxing a few years ago to help her stay in shape. "I box twice a week when I'm at home in New York. When I'm away, I'll try some pathetic attempt to do 10 push-ups and lunges in my hotel room, but I have this wall I need to get over in my mind before I can work out."

She's a big fan of the transformative power of products, but doesn't have any favourites, preferring "anything that is moisturising, the greasier the better. And I love skin tonic sprays for when I'm travelling."

And travel she does, using the opportunity to amass vintage clothes for her wardrobe. "If I have an hour in a city, I go to vintage stores first because it's so much cooler to find a piece that is unique. I love the thought of some girl having worn it before and living her life in it."

Whether she's giving a masterclass in colour-blocking or mooching around Manhattan in geek-chic specs and a vintage tea-dress, she's got great style. "I'm inspired by colours and quirky shapes and designs. I don't like feeling perfectly dressed-up; something has to be a little bit off. Being perfectly matched makes me feel uncomfortable. I ask Mingus his opinion on what I'm wearing and he's like, 'Mom, I'm an 11-year-old boy, how would I know these things?' He's got lots of interesting opinions about me. One moment it's like, 'Oh mum you're so pretty and awesome, I love you so much', and the next he's asking me not to dance around in front of his friends!"

As detached as Christensen was from the other supers, perhaps her biggest regret is not being in George Michael's
Freedom
, which starred Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz and Cindy Crawford. That could explain why she's appearing alongside Crawford, Campbell, Eva Herzigova and Yasmin Le Bon in a reprise, of sorts, for Duran Duran's new music video,
Girl Panic!
"It's cool to be in a video directed by one of the most innovative and exciting music video directors [Jonas Akerlund] around, with a band that made some of my favourite songs ever and hang out with four cool chicks. I mean, really?" Cover your eyes Mingus, it looks like the dancing isn't going to stop anytime soon.